During the Angelus prayer on the Assumption last Monday, Pope Francis said: “The Lord bows down to the lowly in order to raise them up, as is proclaimed in the Magnificat, Mary’s hymn of praise to God.

“Mary’s canticle leads us to think of many painful situations today and particularly those of women overpowered by the burdens of life and the drama of violence, women who are slaves of the abuse of the powerful, girls forced into inhuman work, women forced to surrender body and spirit to the greed of men.

[May exploited women] “be able to live a life of peace, justice and love in expectation of the day they finally will feel held by hands that do not humiliate them, but tenderly lift them and lead them on the path to life.”

Priests ordained in refugee camp

On August 6, three Syriac Catholic refugees were ordained priests two years after they were forced to flee the town of  Qaraqosh in Iraq together with other Syriac Catholics. The ordination was celebrated  in Aishty 2, a refugee camp near the Iraqi Kurdistan city of Erbil.

At present this camp is the home of just under 6,000 refugees, most of whom are Catholics from Qaraqosh. The town was taken over by Isis two years ago. Although the camp’s church only has capacity for about 800 people, around 1,500 came to the ordination.

Fr Momika, one of the ordained priests, said that his vocation, he says, is “to give Christ to the people”.

German bishops praise Martin Luther

Martin Luther, who was excommunicated by Pope Leo X in January 1521, came in for some praise in a report just published by the German Catholic bishops’ conference. The document describes the founder of Lutheranism  as a “teacher of the faith”.

The over-200-page document, titled ‘The Reformation in Ecumenical Perspective’, argues that the Protestant Reformation was too often seen by Catholics “in a negative, derogatory light”. But it commended Luther for his “concern for renewal in repentance and conversion”.

The report was signed by Bishop Gerhard Feige of Magdeburg, chairman of the German bishops’ ecumenical commission.

Bishop Feige said the “history and consequences” of the Reformation would be debated during its upcoming 500th anniversary, but added that there was consensus that previous mutual condemnations were invalid.

“Memories of the Reformation and the subsequent separation of Western Christianity are not free from pain,” Bishop Feige said. “But through lengthy ecumenical dialogue, the theological differences rooted in the period have been re-evaluated – as is documented in the work presented by our ecumenical commission.”

‘We need to tear down walls’

When he visited the US-Mexican border, Archbishop Francisco Mo­re­no Barrón, the new Archbishop of Tijuana, Mexico, said “we need to build bridges, and tear down walls”.

While making this statement he leaned on the border fence, saying he wants to remember everything he passes close to that place.

The San Diego Union Tribune also reported that the Archbishop also said he hoped US presidential candidate Donald Trump “will always have people near him who will help him make a profound reflection that would allow him to reorient his convictions... for the benefit of the entire human community beyond the interests of one single country”.

(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)

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